In the world of fitness, exercise and body-building, the efficient development of abdominal muscles of the human body is particularly difficult. Because the abdominal muscles are not attached to any joint, traditional joint movement exercises have no effect on the abdominals. Exercises such as sit-ups or weight-loaded variations on sit-ups may indirectly involve the abdominal muscles but are inefficient because much of the exercise energy is dissipated in the joints and muscles attached to the joints such as hip flexors. Thus the traditional exercises and machines designed to exercise abdominal muscles are inefficient at best and require long and laborious programs of rigorous exercise.
There is a need for more efficient manners and devices for exercise and development of abdominal musculature in addition to sporting and personal appearance aspects, in that the medical consequences of weak abdominal muscles are dangerously weak back and spinal erector muscle groups which oppose the frontal abdominal groups. Proper and efficient exercise of the abdominal muscles will tend to require strengthening of back musculature, having both remedial and preventive beneficial effects relating to common lower back and spinal problems.
The present inventor has been involved in development of various approaches to this single problem, that is efficient development of abdominal musculature, and has developed devices which have been the subject of prior applications for Letters Patent, for instance Ser. No. 156,404 filed Feb. 16, 1988 for Abdominal Musculature Development Method and Device. That application described a large floor-mounted machine intended for gymnasiums and medical facility usage which employed a novel method of tensioning the abdominal muscles for efficient exercise by maintaining a specifically controlled posture during a weighted movement. Despite this inventor's previous developments, more remains to be done in that the previous device, while a significant advance over the prior art, left unanswered the need for a simplified, inexpensive device and method for exercising where larger machines might not be available.
Because the previous method developed by this inventor is oriented to controlled posture and tensioning with large weight-type devices, that device could not be adapted to a portable use. In order to be made convenient, portable and accessible to a large market share, a new and more compact method was sought which might approach the efficiency of the larger machine and retain many of the benefits newly developed for abdominal musculature exercise.
Thus it is an object of the present invention to enable exercise of the abdominal musculature in an efficient and effective way.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a means of exercising the abdominal musculature that will isolate a major portion of the required user effort on the abdominal muscles being exercised, minimizing wasted motion.
A further object of the invention is to provide a device that is easily portable and usable in nearly any environment.
Another object of the invention is to provide a portable device that will correctively address lower back problems at the same time as exercising the abdominal musculature.
Another object of the invention is to provide a portable device that can be adjustable over a wide range for a variety of users and their particular physical condition.
A final objective of the invention is to provide a simplified exercise method for development of the abdominal musculature that involves a minimum of separate parts and can be easily assembled and used by an unsophisticated purchaser.